I read it in the tabloids

■ City workers used Crisco to grease light poles and traffic signals across Philadelphia this week in an effort to stop jubilant fans from climbing them following the NFC Championship Game. It didn’t work. The Philadelphia Eagles crushed the Minnesota Vikings 38-7 in the hometown game, sending the Eagles to the Super Bowl, and exuberant fans rushed into the streets to cheer, honk horns—and shimmy up the shortening-smeared poles. One Eagles fan wrote on Twitter that he couldn’t resist “this blatant challenge presented by the #CriscoCops.”

■ A Brazilian man has lived for 22 years in an elaborate sandcastle on one of Rio de Janeiro’s most beautiful beaches. Known as “the king” to locals, Marcio Mizael Matolias often poses for tourist photos outside his handcrafted palace on Barra da Tijuca beach, seated on a wooden throne with a scepter in hand. His sandcastle needs daily repairs and has to be regularly wetted down to prevent it from collapsing, but Matolias thinks it’s a dream home. “People pay exorbitant rents to live in front of the sea,” he says. “I do not have bills, and here I have a good life.”

■ Villagers in rural India were thrilled when a mysterious blue rock fell from the sky, thinking it was an “asteroid” or a piece of a UFO. When the 26-pound lump of ice landed in the middle of Fazilpur Badli, residents chopped off samples of it, said local official Vivek Kalia. But authorities determined that the ice was likely human waste that was discharged from a passing plane’s toilet, and that its bluish color was caused by liquid disinfectants. “Villagers who kept the ice inside their refrigerators,” said one resident, “are now busy cleaning their houses.”